Maydare Volume 7 Chapter 2: The Queen's Tea Party

 

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I hurt Thor.

I couldn’t say the words he wanted the most, or deny what he wanted me to deny.

But Thor was afraid of learning the truth from five hundred years ago. 

What should I do or say to clear up his misunderstanding?

Misunderstanding. What was the misunderstanding?

What did I want to tell him in the first place?

”What and who do I treasure the most in the end…” I mumbled to myself in a dark room as I sat in a chair by the window.

Bedtime in Vabel came early, and most of the lights were already out. Since the nation was covered by the shade of the World Tree, the starry sky was barely visible. But in its place, the spirits that lived in the World Tree radiated a pale light, and you could see a stream of magical power like an aurora borealis.

It was too beautiful a sight for how I was feeling now, and I somewhat felt like crying.

In this life, the one I loved was without a doubt Thor. That was why it was so painful when we misunderstood each other.

On the other hand, the me from my past life was whispering to me. You must not forget that vow.

Save Kanon.

If I made that vow the first condition of my life, I might as well give up on my love with Thor. Because it would be unfair to him.

What Thor wished for was a peaceful life in Deliafield.

To bring peace to the world and return there with me.

Our goals in life were becoming unaligned, between me, who had Returned, and Thor, who hadn’t…

”Oi, Makia!”

”Gyah, Bishop Eska!?”

Bishop Eska barged into my room without knocking.

As I was in a thin nightgown just before bedtime, I panicked.

However, Bishop Eska did not care about that at all and came to me. He held out something to me.

”You’ve received an invitation to a tea party from the Wisteria Princess.”

”Huh!? The queen?”

At this late hour…?

”Her Majesty wants to speak with you.”

”...What?”

I was getting more and more teary-eyed.

I was definitely getting scolded after what happened this morning.

I got dressed and was led by Bishop Eska to the room where Queen Shatoma was staying. I trembled as I walked down the long hallways of Vabel Palace.

”Why are you scared? The Wisteria Princess in private mode is very gentle and lovely.”

I glanced up at him. “So even you can find a woman cute?”

”Of course. The Wisteria Princess is the cutest in the world.”

”...”

I knew that the Wisteria Princess and the Archbishop of Holy Ash had a relationship three hundred years ago, but what kind of relationship was it?

I’m sure that they had a relationship that was built up over the years, just like the Scarlet Witch, the Black Demon King, and the White Sage…

”That said, have you heard about Thor Bigreitz’s mother?”

”Thor’s…mother?”

Not knowing what he was talking about, I shook my head.

Bishop Eska’s face became unusually solemn.

“His mother was ill in a hospital here in Vabel, and she passed away a few days ago. Thor Bigreitz was with her when she was called to the gods.”

My eyes widened. Then I remembered.

Around evening time, Bishop Eska and Thor were talking about something with serious expressions on their faces, and they were going somewhere together. I had no idea something like that had happened.

“...I didn’t know,” I answered in a trembling voice.

It wasn’t hard for me to understand the sense of loss that was now overtaking Thor.

Thor had always harbored complicated feelings for his birth parents. Even the mere sight of his homeland from above had disturbed his heart somewhat, and he tended to be in low spirits. Still, the death of his birth mother must have been heartbreaking.

To think that he would witness his mother’s death in a place and time like this.

“I, I have to go to Thor…!”

“Wait! He told me that he wanted to be alone in his room for a while. He especially doesn’t want to see you.”

“...”

He didn’t want to see me…?

“With your Return and the death of his mother, Thor Bigreitz is in an unstable state of mind. It’s not a good idea to let him Return right now. Even when his mind is stable, he’ll end up like you.”

“You have a point,” I answered in a monotone, twisting my face.

Certainly, I had entered that sanctuary in a very healthy state of mind, and having steeled myself for whatever was going to happen, I touched the World Tree and regained my memories.

But even so, my mind ended up becoming so disturbed that I sobbed in public.

It would be terrible to make Thor, who had just lost his mother, recall all those memories, and I didn’t want him to either.

Why was it only Thor?

Various circumstances were always chasing after him.

Even though I was one of those reasons, I…

What could I do for Thor when he didn’t even want to see me?

The atmosphere of the hallway suddenly changed.

The scent of exotic incense wafted through the air from somewhere.

A single fluorescent light drifted in from the far end and stopped right in front of my eyes. Oh, this is a firefly spirit.

“You’ll be on your own from here. The Wisteria Princess’s firefly spirit, Fiele, will guide you.” After saying that, Bishop Eska quickly went back the way he came, leaving me behind.

Guided by the light of the firefly spirit, I made my way to the room where the Queen of Frezier was staying, a place where I would normally be unable to even visit.

The heavy, magnificent doors were carved with the coat of arms of the great nation of Frezier.

It was most likely a room reserved for the royal family of Frezier that had been in Vabel since ancient times.

I took several breaths, then knocked on the door.

“Queen Shatoma. It’s Makia.”

The reply came immediately. “Enter.”

At the same time, the doors of the room opened on their own.

The room was dimly lit and filled with sweet-smelling incense. The stuffy and humid air made me cough a little.

“Welcome, Makia.”

“...Your Majesty. Thank you for inviting me.” I lifted my skirt and bowed my head.

Queen Shatoma had already taken off her military uniform and was lounging on the sofa in a shimmery silk nightgown. 

She had propped her head up on one elbow and was leisurely eating fruit…

It reminded me of when we first met at the night party in Ruschia.

Back then, I didn’t know that she was the queen of a great country.

Nor that she was the great magician, the “Wisteria Princess,” in her previous life…

“I’m letting you know that I am not ‘Your Majesty’ tonight. Refer to me as ‘Princess.’”

“Huh? Princess?”

“I am at the age when I desire to be called ‘Princess’ in private. If you make a misstep here, I shall throw a tantrum.”

“T-Then, Princess Shatoma.”

I couldn’t afford to offend her any more than I already have, so I did as I was told and called her Princess.

“Um, Your Majesty, I mean, Princess Shatoma. I am very sorry for my rudeness this morning. I was in a confused state of mind,” I chose my words carefully as I sweated profusely. I bowed my head deeply in apology. “It’s all my fault. So, please, I don’t want this to become an international incident…”

“International incident? Oh, because I said it was war? Ahahahaha!” Princess Shatoma smacked her thigh and laughed hysterically.  “It’s absurd to think that we would go to war with our most important ally. If that were to happen, I would make an enemy of Ulysses.”

“...Huh?”

“Ulysses is unparalleled when it comes to his skills as a spirit magician. I am not so foolish as to make an enemy out of him.”

I see. That’s amazing.

Professor Ulysses was a deterrent to war by his very existence.

“Fufu. The war I informed you of this morning was the war between women.”

I paled again under Princess Shatoma’s sharp gaze.

That in itself was a terrible war that I didn’t think I could win.

As I trembled like a small animal, Princess Shatoma stroked her chin and let out a “Hmm.”

“I thought you would become more of a haughty woman now that the Scarlet Witch’s memories have returned, but you, how should I put this, are still Makia.”

“Huh…?”

Haughty??

“Well, it doesn’t matter. Everyone was like that directly after a Return. I also cried and flailed around in front of the World Tree and went to search for Kanon like you. I clung to him immediately after finding him. I did not apologize profusely like you did, though.”

“...”

Basically, it seemed that Kanon had also appeared in the era of Princess Shatoma’s past life, the “Wisteria Princess,” and influenced the times with her.

I was curious about that, but before I could ask anything, Princess Shatoma thrust the tip of her fan at me.

“Don’t just stand there, sit down. The memories of the Scarlet Witch are precious. There are many things I want to confirm with you.”

Princess Shatoma motioned for me to sit on the sofa across from her.

I did as I was told and sat down, glancing at her.

“Um, Princess Shatoma. Do you know about the relationship between the Scarlet Witch and Kanon?”

“Yes, I have heard about you and Kanon. He told me that in the previous life, he was under the Scarlet Witch’s care, and that he had a mother and son-like relationship with her.”

“Kanon…did?”

I was a little surprised that he told Princess Shatoma about our relationship in that way.

Calling it a mother-and-son-like relationship was my one-sided wish, and I didn’t think that Kanon would feel that way.

He himself had said that he did not think of me as his mother.

“Um, Princess Shatoma. Did you meet Kanon three hundred years ago?”

Three hundred years ago. That was a little after the era of the Scarlet Witch and the others.

As the woman born as the Wisteria Princess, how did she live, and how did she die?

How did she meet Kanon the <Retriever> in that life? What kind of relationship did they build? …The current me was very curious about those things.

Princess Shatoma poured a sweet-smelling drink into a glass and placed it in front of me.

And then, she spoke in a somewhat nostalgic tone.

“Yes. He also appeared in front of me three hundred years ago. In order to kill me one day.”

Since Princess Shatoma told me to drink, I took a sip of the drink she had poured for me.

It was a sweet, rich, and cold fruit juice. I didn’t know what kind of fruit it was, but it had no sourness and was easy to drink.

I finally calmed down a little after being so restless earlier.

“Then…did you perhaps have a deep relationship with him?”

“A deep relationship?”

“Um, to put it simply, were you lovers?”

They were still together all the time, and she was serious when she told me that she wouldn’t give Kanon to me.

Princess Shatoma stared at me in amazement, and then started laughing hysterically again, as if I had said something hilarious. She was rolling around on the sofa.

“Do we look that way to you? You’re close, but you’re also as far off the mark as you can get.”

“...Far off the mark?”

“It’s the opposite of you and Kanon. Kanon was my father, and I was his daughter.”

“...”

I slowly widened my eyes.

“Three hundred years ago, I was also the princess of Frezier. But because of my high magical power, I was severely ostracized by my father the king. It was the era immediately after the Scarlet Witch created the giant hole in the center of the world. It was also the time when the existence of magicians with great power was feared.”

“Ah…!”

In our era, we were fighting against humans.

In the end, I died and caused a huge explosion in the center of the world.

Even though most of that place was a lake, there definitely would have been victims and people who could no longer live there because of the devastation.

I did something that would naturally make me hated and feared by the people of Maydare.

In the world that followed, magicians were treated coldly in Frezier. I was reminded that the eras weren’t disconnected, but always interlinked.

“Well, that’s all in my past life now,” Princess Shatoma said, as though it was nothing, and continued. “And so, when I was about to be killed by my father’s assassin, Kanon appeared and saved me. He took me out of the palace, and I traveled the world with him until I was later on called the Wisteria Princess and started a revolution in this country…”

“...”

“In those days, Kanon raised me like I was his own daughter, and he was like a father to me.”

Princess Shatoma’s tone was very gentle.

I could feel the nostalgia and love for her past life’s memories in the depths of her downcast amber eyes.

“It’s the same for the Archbishop of Holy Ash. He was also born in Vabel in his previous life, and he knew from the beginning about the Retriever’s duty to gather our corpses in the Holy Land. That was why he was never hostile towards Kanon and was his ally who was close to his situation from the start. He had always felt sorry for him because of his role.”

“...That Bishop Eska?” I felt like I heard something completely unexpected.

“Yes. In his previous life, he was not as outspoken as he is now. His appearance and personality were the very picture of a pure saint.”

“Huh? Huh?”

I couldn’t imagine Bishop Eska like that at all.

What could have made him look and talk like such a demon?

“And, for me, he was like a doting grandfather.”

“...”

Before, Bishop Eska had said that “the Wisteria Princess is the cutest in the world.”

I had found it strange that a person like him could find a woman cute, but it made sense if he considered the woman in question his granddaughter.

The saint called the Wisteria Princess was at the center, and Kanon, who was like her father, and the Bishop, who was like her grandfather, formed her support. That was how they were, and that composition didn’t change even in this life.

The relationship between these people was an exact continuation of their previous life.

It was as though they were continuing on from where they ended in this life.

That was why the trust between those three was unshakeable.

“...”

But then I suddenly thought of something. When I did, a chilling sensation of fear rose in my chest.

I clenched my hands in my lap. “Um, Princess Shatoma. Did Kanon kill you even though he cherished you like a daughter?” I asked.

There was only one reason Kanon would approach a great magician. 

No matter how good the relationship he established with the other person, he would eventually kill them and place their remains in the Holy Land’s coffin. That was why he was called the <Retriever>. 

But Princess Shatoma shook her head.

“No. Kanon never laid a hand on me. I did not let him.”

“What…?”

Princess Shatoma knitted her brows together somewhat sadly. 

“I didn’t want to force him to do such a thing. That’s why I schemed a meaningful execution, one that would go down in history.”

“...”

She was referring to the end of the “Wisteria Princess” three hundred years ago, which everyone learned in history class.

The saint, Wisteria Princess, was eventually decapitated by a guillotine for treason against her country. But it seemed even this was her own death orchestrated by her.

 I recalled my own death.

I stabbed my chest with the golden dagger that could kill great magicians and blew myself up with magic.

Just like me at that time, the Wisteria Princess also didn’t want to make Kanon kill her.

It was her strong love for him that made her want to spare him.

It was similar to how I felt, albeit in a slightly different form.

“Ah, but the Archbishop was of the same mind as me. He did not want to make Kanon kill him, so he also took his own life. The three of us were compatriots and companions three hundred years ago, and we were like family.” Princess Shatoma spoke with a look of nostalgia and love on her face.

They had a completely different relationship from the Scarlet Witch, Black Demon King, White Sage, and the Savior of Fraxinus.

But like us, the Wisteria Princess, Archbishop of Holy Ash, and Kanon the Retriever had a long story together.

I see. That was why Kanon was still with these people even now. 

He also had comrades he could trust with all his heart. 

I felt somewhat relieved, yet saddened at that thought.

I was happy and frustrated that this person gave Kanon what I wasn’t able to. But I think the happiness won out.

I let things end the way they did. That was all I could do.

But even after that, Kanon was unceasingly performing his role as the <Retriever>, and if during that time, there were people who understood him and were kind to him, then…

“I feel like I’m Kanon’s mother, but maybe that’s true. For him, our time together was just one instant of his time going around the world as the <Retriever>. It might not be so important to him…”

Maybe I was the only one who was blowing it out of proportion and reacted in an exaggerated way.

If that was the case, I could understand Kanon’s coldness this morning.

He might have thought, Whoa, she actually took it seriously…

“Hah, what are saying?” However, Princess Shatoma snapped shut the fan in her hand. “It was because you loved Kanon as your own child that he was also able to love me as his own daughter. The love between parents and children is connected together.”

“Love…between parent and child?”

My heart thumped inexpressibly. I couldn’t help but clutch my chest.

I felt like crying. If my love for Kanon connected to the Wisteria Princess, then even if we weren’t related by blood, it was an undeniable “parent-child love.”

However, Princess Shatoma then spoke in a somewhat playful tone. 

“After all, you are like a grandmother to me. Do not worry, Grandmother, I shall take good care of you in your old age! Look forward to it! Ahaha!”

“Old, old age…”

Right now, I was younger than her, right…?

My sentimental tears receded. Unbeknownst to me, I had a very great, rich, and beautiful granddaughter. My old age was too secure.

Princess Shatoma took no heed of my bewilderment and changed her posture. “So, how is Thor Bigreitz?”

She changed the subject so casually.

My shoulders trembled.

“I hear that he is refusing to Return. I also heard that his mother passed away in Vabel. Despite appearances, he is quite a cowardly man.”

“He’s nothing…he’s nothing of the sort! Thor is an excellent knight. He’s just a little unstable right now. That’s all my fault…!” As I spoke, my voice got smaller and smaller.

“Hmm,” Princess Shatoma stroked her chin. “I see. I wonder what kind of trauma he had in his previous life.”

“I’m sure you must have heard from Kanon about the relationship between the Scarlet Witch and Black Demon King, Princess Shatoma. We were a married couple at one point. But we misunderstood each other until the very end.”

I dropped my gaze. In the back of my blurring gaze, I saw Torc, the Black Demon King.

“I believe Thor’s soul remembers that.”

I still vividly remembered how he turned his back to me at the end.

I could even recall all the words in the letter he left me.

I cried so much on that snowy plain after he passed away.

“And yet, right after I returned, Kanon was the only thing on my mind. I didn’t look at Thor at all.”

If I were in Thor’s position, I would feel that I wasn’t in the center of this person’s heart no matter how you look at it.

If the person I loved single-mindedly chased and looked at someone other than me after they recalled their previous life’s memories…

“He must be so disappointed in me. Because I didn’t keep my promise.”

I was so easily caught up in the memories and feelings of my past life. 

Thor had always been worried that if I met my “soulmate” from my previous life, I would forget my feelings now.

But this relationship and feelings were too complicated to call him my “soulmate.”

In a sense, it was a vow from my previous life that took more prominence than soulmates, and I couldn’t abandon it.

Princess Shatoma sipped her sweet fruit juice, watching me sideways as I struggled with my complicated feelings.

“Let me tell you something. If ‘saving Kanon’ is the vow of your previous life that you can’t forget, then it is the same for me and the Archbishop. Your vow is not yours alone. Nor can you fulfill it alone.”

Hearing that, I looked up.

That’s right. Princess Shatoma had requested that of us before me in the first place.

That day, when Lune Ruschia Magic School’s seal was broken.

“In the Age of Myths, we pressed a great role onto the man named Kanon. If we want to free him from it, then we must work together.”

“Work…together…”

“Correct. Hence, you need not try to bear everything alone.”

I wasn’t the only one trying to save Kanon.

If we wanted to save Kanon, we had to work together.

That realization came as a big shock to me.

Somewhere along the way, I came under the impression that I had to accomplish this myself. Because I painfully recalled Makirié’s vow and regrets.

But I wasn’t the only one who cared about Kanon in the first place. I shouldn’t think I was the only one.

When I thought of that, I saw “Makia.”

Rather than being bound by the things passed down from Makirié’s time, I could now naturally see the important things that were built during Makia’s time, and what I wanted to cherish in this life.

“Let me ask you again. Who is the most important person to you in this life?”

“The most…important person to me…”

“I’ll rephrase the question. Who was the first person you fell in love with when you had no memory of anything? Is that not your answer in the end?”

 “...”

My eyes slowly widened.

That’s right. In any era, I would always fall in love with that person first.

Torc Twilight. Saitou Tooru.

And the name I gave him–Thor.

No matter how many times I was reborn, I would always fall in love with that person.

“...Thor…!”

When I realized this, tears spilled from my eyes.

In the pure and innocent days of my childhood, I would always be drawn to him.

“But he probably hates me now…!”

I was sure that even if I told Thor that he was the one I loved most, it wouldn’t resonate with him now.

“He’s definitely going to leave me…!”

I can’t rewind the time that has passed.

Those were the words written in Torc’s letter.

Now I could understand his conflict and regrets at that time. I knew all too well that once a heart drifts away, it could never return to where it once was.

Princess Shatoma stood up, came over to me as I sobbed, and gently cradled my head in her arms.

“There, there. All great magicians will inevitably be accompanied by love troubles. Even if one can use powerful magic to change the world, you can’t even win the heart of the one person you love. There is nothing you can do about it.”

His voice was somewhat sad. Feeling a strange sense of conviction in her words, I asked her a question in her arms. 

“...Princess Shatoma, have you experienced that kind of thing?”

“Why, of course. I have been in an unrequited love for a long time now.”

“...”

“That person would never see me as a woman.”

I felt like I didn’t need to ask who that person was.

I see. So that was what it was…

“Ah, that reminds me! There is a theory that maidens should gossip about their love lives in the bath. So, we shall take a bath together. Let us do that.”

“Huh? What?”

I’ve never heard of that theory.

“Your face is quite a mess from all that crying. You can’t go see the man you love looking like that. Now stand up, Grandmother.”

Princess Shatoma gave me an innocent smile, helped me up, and pulled me by the hand into the apartment’s luxurious bathroom.

The princess who supported me as I staggered and wobbled into the bathroom was indeed my ideal granddaughter.

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